Category: 2016

Photos and short story by Mary Jane Farmer Well, it’s all over but the shoutin’ now, and The White Elephant Saloon will play host to lots of shoutin’ Wednesday, March 30, as Tin & Tonic takes on Hillrise for all the Texas Music Showdown marbles. Tin & Tonic advanced to the final over Big Town […]

Story and videos by Houston Hall — Click on the links below to view the videos. Many of you have heard of a little piece of heaven that lies between two state highways just north of a town called Stephenville. Melody Mountain Ranch, aka the place where the ever-growing Larry Joe Taylor Music Festival is […]

Photos by Mary Jane Farmer — Click on the links below for more photos Two bands, Hillrise and Gander Slu, met on the White Elephant Saloon to kick off Round 2 of this 11th annual Texas Music Showdown. Judges Brett Dillon, Dustin Hendricks, Scott Copeland and Aubrey Lynn England selected, after both bands gave it […]

Round 1, Week 3, March 2, 2016 Round 1, Week 4, March 9, 2016 This avid music fan wasn’t able to attend Weeks 1 and 2 of this 11th yearly Texas Music Showdown. Winners of those two nights and moving into Round 2 were Hillrise and Gander Slu, and they will challenge each other on […]

The MJ Blog

Mary Jane Farmer, Texas Nexus, August 2017 It’s a 3-column list I have worked up — “PACK UP” it’s called. It’s what I have to reference and cling to when getting ready to go to all the music festivals in my life. And there’s a bunch! Me and Hippie Van head out. She has clean […]

Because you asked… The Celebrate Austin Music Festival at Zilker Park, circa April 15, 1984, was filled with Austin-based touring acts with generous sprinklings of up-and-comers. A lot of that information is in Rod Kennedy’s book, Music of the Heart, written many years before his 4-14-14 death. It had been a long three-day event, and […]

This was first in Buddy Magazine, August 2016 issue. People ask me a lot — why am I in the music business? OK, I’ll share the secret – it was a guy who got me into all this. While teaching school in El Paso, I met another teacher, a musician, out there and that chance meeting and […]

(I’m sorry, but we got absolutely NO photos of these people.) Ake Pecha — I was told this means “Start fresh, my friend.” It was probably around 1982 when Kerrville Festival Producer Rod Kennedy took a trip to the southeast, where he met a group of travelers from the Scandinavian countries. This was the “International School […]

This took a lot of prayer and thanksgiving for me to write and publish. This was one changing quote in my life… From the movie “Mozart,” this statement by composer Salleri: “Why?… implant the desire (for music)… like a lust in my body? And then deny me the talent?” Early on, I could not figure out myself […]